More Thrills than Skills – A Half-life in Journalism, Part 90

Over the next few weeks, allmediascotland.com is to publish, each weekday, extracts from the memoirs of Scottish war correspondent, Paul Harris. ‘More Thrills than Skills: A Half-life in Journalism’, is being scheduled for publication next year.

Illogical, I thought. I haven’t actually been in the country long enough to be in any sort of trouble but I kept my thoughts to myself. An apparently more senior plain-clothes policeman arrived in the room. Questions, seemingly without point, came one after another. Have you written against Israel? What will you write this time? Is your father’s name John? Are you positive about your date of birth? Do you always use the name Paul Anthony Harris?And then the cruncher. Are you sure you have not been deported from Israel?

Stay calm and courteous, I told myself. But then it came. “You are banned from entry into the State of Israel.” This was definitely a new one on me. “You were deported on your last visit and tomorrow you will answer questions at the Ministry of the Interior in Jerusalem. They will decide what to do with you.”